Robert Scoble relaying a conversation he had with Google VP Vic Gundotra about some of the problems Google+ has right now:

He says it isn’t about real names. He says he isn’t using his legal name here. He says, instead, it is about having common names and removing people who spell their names in weird ways, like using upside-down characters, or who are using obviously fake names, like “god” or worse.

I find that hard to believe. They allowed whatever name people wanted to use for email addresses — suddenly now they want them to be “real”? I forget, do advertisers like to be able to link data with real names?1